Moon Transiting The Sun
Mike, here’s a movie of the moon crossing the face of the sun as viewed a few million miles outside Earth’s orbit by one of the Stereo satellites.
Thought you’d enjoy it.
–rakkity
Monday, March 5, 2007
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Pretty.
Comment by Chris — March 5, 2007 @ 7:59 am
The juxtaposition of the transit, while cool, is somehow less marvelous than the filtered ability to look directly at the otherwise overwhelming energy of the sun itself, and all it’s marvelous textures — I’d ratchet Chris’s adjective up a few notches to stunning … ! Thanks!
Comment by adam — March 5, 2007 @ 8:22 am
Ditto Adam, but the most incredible thing to me is that we have man-made technology in space that can look back from a million miles to attain incredible this perspective.
Thanks Rakkity.
Comment by smiling Dan — March 11, 2007 @ 9:24 am
A million miles? How about billions of years?
Comment by michael — March 11, 2007 @ 1:23 pm
Somehow the photos from and to things millions of miles away seems more real to me than the pictures taken toward much greater distances like galaxies and the edge of the universe. After all, some humans may possibly be going distances of 100s of millions of miles during our lifetimes. The billions-away pictures are so paradoxical and mysterious, I think about them in a whole different part of my brain.
The Stereo satellite that took that moon transit sequence is actually a pair of telescopes, one moving ahead of earth in its orbit, and the other moving behind. In a few months they will be far enough apart (10-20 million miles) that they can make “stereo” movies of the sun, solar ejections, and comets.
Soon coming to the web, thank you taxpayers all.
Comment by rakkity — March 11, 2007 @ 9:18 pm